Diageo, M&S, Lush and Carlsberg are just some of the major names already on board as part of Packaging Innovations and Luxury Packaging London’s free to attend seminar programme.

The expert sessions, packed with real life stories, advice and innovative ideas, will offer packaging professionals insights into the latest developments, technologies and research when the show returns to London Olympia on 12 to 13 September 2018.

Featuring a focus on innovation and sustainability, the seminar programme will run across three stages and feature dedicated forums for the food, drink, beauty and luxury markets. The Luxury Forum will focus on creating innovative packaging for the luxury market and will welcome speakers from high profile organisations including Havas and Hunter Luxury.

Neil Farmer will also focus on the luxury packaging market when he explores the rapidly growing luxury packaging market, the trends and innovations that are driving this segment and the technologies to look out for.

The Drinks Forum will also see several high profile speakers from the industry taking to the stage when it returns for 2018. Jeremy Lindley, global design director at Diageo will address the importance of packaging as a marketing tool with his talk, ‘Is packaging the silver bullet to address the declining impact of traditional media?’. Focusing on the challenges an ever-evolving market faces is Santiago Navarro, chief executive and co-founder of Garcon Wines, who will present ‘Wines for the Amazon Generation’. The Drinks Forum will also welcome speakers from Carlsberg, Arctic Gin and Metsa.

Rob Hollands, managing director at Anthem Worldwide, will showcase KitKat’soi ‘Live Your Break’ and Fanta’s ‘Takeover Fanta’ campaigns during his seminar ‘The Future is Now’. The talk will encourage brands to consider how they can change packaging, a passive touch point with huge reach, into a fully immersive experience that can even be tailored to the individual consumer.

Sam Ellison and Emma Jones from Redshoe will offer their top tips for staying ahead of the game and driving consumer engagement within the food and beverage industry. The talk will highlight several key factors challenging the sector as well as those having a direct impact upon packaging design. They will demonstrate how brands are embracing these challenges and showcase a number of inspirational concepts and designs that are winning with consumers.